There is currently increasing interest and activity in the area of Virtual Reality (VR) and AR. Major industry players are working on consumer oriented AR/VR HMD devices, while activity around AR and VR content seems to be actively explored by various stakeholders in the Hollywood entertainment industry. If consumer AR/VR takes off, there will be a great demand for solutions that enable content consumption with larger variety of devices besides just AR or VR HMDs which are currently driving the development.
The illusion that VR aims to create is one where the user feels as if he/she is present in a synthetic virtual world instead of physical reality. This illusion can be achieved by substituting the user's audiovisual perception of the real world with synthetic images and sounds generated by a computer simulation. For a convincing illusion, the images and sounds generated by the computer simulation should have a consistent spatial relation with the user and respond to the changes of viewpoint caused by the user's motion, so that the user can explore the virtual world just as he or she can explore the real physical world. Similar to VR, AR aims at generating an illusion, in this case one where virtual elements are attached to the physical environment, creating an alternative version of the physical reality around the user.
At the same time that AR and VR HMDs are paving the way for immersive experiences in the living rooms, it can be observed how dimensions of consumer displays are growing. People are willing to have larger and larger displays in their living rooms. However, despite the growing size, current flat or slightly curved displays do not comprehensively support immersive experiences such as the ones created for the AR/VR HMDs. However, as display technology evolves, in the near future users may have even more display area available in their living rooms; the displays may become non-planar and occupy several walls and/or be deformable so that the shape and configuration of the display can change to match the content being consumed and context of use.
AR and VR HMDs are also not suited for displaying fully immersive content on their own, in part due to the semi-opaque nature of optical see-through displays and limited field of view. Transparency of the display causes virtual content to appear as a ghost image on top of the user's view of the real world, while limited field of view further disrupts the illusion as the view cuts off sharply towards the edge of vision.
Optical see-through AR HMDs are currently being pushed to the consumer market by several manufacturers, including major industry players such as Microsoft, Sony, Epson, etc. These first generation devices aimed for consumer markets have shortcomings, especially in terms of limited field of view, luminance and transparency of the images they can produce. However, it is realistic to anticipate that next device generations will fix at least some of these shortcomings and offer high resolution AR visualization with good image quality in comfortable form factor.
Despite the probable future improvements of the AR HMDs, reproducing the resolution and color/luminance of traditional displays using optical see-through HMDs may be difficult. Furthermore, current technologies used for AR HMDs provide only fixed eye accommodation distance, and by doing so, present one more shortcoming to consider.
AR HMDs also have characteristics that make them superior to traditional displays in some areas. AR HMDs enable users to move freely about an environment without compromising overall image quality. Further, most smart-glass HMDs may track user movement and create an approximation of the environment geometry, which in turn enables augmentation and rich interaction with the environment. Also, as the HMDs display near the user's eyes, users have a clear line of sight to the display.
In the area of shape-changing displays, most related examples are production-ready display devices that can be adjusted between curved and flat shape; moreover, there has been some speculation regarding tiled display technology. Besides displays composed of several planar displays or slightly curving displays, display manufacturers have long been working on truly flexible displays, with production-ready solutions becoming closer to realization. In the academic research community, some examples of related prototype installations exist; robotic display and small tile display, as described by way of example in TAKASHIMA, Kazuki, et al. A Shape-Shifting Wall Display that Supports Individual and Group Activities. 2015 and ALEXANDER, Jason; LUCERO, Andrés; SUBRAMANIAN, Sriram. Tilt displays: designing display surfaces with multi-axis tilting and actuation. In: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services. ACM, 2012. p. 161-170. Some related devices and methods may be found in: U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,988,343; 8,711,091; and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US20100321275 A1. However, there seem to be few examples of deformable or tiled display systems that would allow dynamic adjustment during the experience.